Growing up. What every child longs for and what every adolescent ardently desires. Growing up? What does it mean? The physiological changes – intense hormonal activity resulting in bodily growth and the awakening of impulses hitherto unknown; increased expectations to taste freedom at last – freedom to go out with friends, to manage one’s own pocket money, to watch TV alone, to choose one’s clothes.

Yes, growing up is all this and yet more. It is the daily discovery of a whole new world, of perceiving new meanings in life, of encountering novel experiences and feelings that bring new colours to the landscape. It is that privileged stage of life when everything is so important and yet, nothing is important. Life is taken one day at a time.

The hitch with growing up lies not so much with the person who is undergoing the inevitable process but rather with others and their expectations. The problem resides in the way the adults look at you - or rather do not look at you. Actually, it’s not you that they see but rather one of a herd, an example among so many of the ‘degenerate youth’, as they put it at times. You crave to tell them that you are you.

You may dress like others and talk the same language but you are a whole person. They just won’t listen. Listen! They hear the noise you make but they don’t listen to you, your opinion doesn’t count, it’s crazy stuff, uttered out of inexperience. “Wait till you are in my place, then you’ll see”, is the standard reaction. These are moments when you want to scream that you are real and unique and that you can’t be in anyone else’s place but your own. Identity crisis!

Growing up also means having to tackle that very difficult task of taking decisions. How do I know what’s right and what’s wrong? Why should I not trust what the other one is telling me? Should I side with them against the parents or do I listen to the voice inside me that’s telling me the parents are right? Growing up means facing those junctures that are crucial in our lives, decisions like choosing our friends, choosing a career orientation, knowing how to handle peer pressure.

Taking these decisions makes young people more mature and helps in the process. These are also some kind of test of personality and strength of character. For instance, standing up to peer pressure can be a formidable challenge.

One has to be ready to bear the scoffs and taunts of friends one meets daily while the doubts (to be or not to be?) regarding the rightness or wrongness of the decision keep nagging at you. These are moments when a compassionate, non-judgemental voice of experience is indispensable.

Birth, growth, decay and death are all part of the rhythm of Nature. It is important for man to heed this music because any attempt to stall or accelerate the cadence will have catastrophic results.